I cried because of the noise and entire experience, but mainly because with Dan and friends, and 80,000 people, we let it all pour out. That's the best I can sum it up. It's over now. "Our revels now are ended," announced Prospero. What loomed for so long has now tailed off, gleaming but inspiring us in its wake.

For at least 20 of the athletes who competed in the Games in London this year, it is polio which has left them paralysed - a vicious, highly infectious disease that attacks the nervous system and can cause paralysis, if not death. It is children under five who are most vulnerable to infection. But it was possible to watch London 2012's Paralympics Games with a great sense of optimism. These Games were historic, not only for the number of competing athletes and sell-out crowds, but also because they may well have been the last Olympics to take place in a world where a child is at risk of paralysis because of polio.